Dentists make their money by selling time and expertise.  Anything that can be done to save administrative time (nonchargeable) and increase the time spent in the Surgery (chargeable) will increase turnover and subsequently profit.

Generally, by the hour, outsourcing is more expensive than employing a member of staff to do the work but less expensive than the principal dentist doing the work.   If I use finance as an example - a decent bookkeeper will cost you between £15 and £25 per hour, depending on where you live.  A Practice Manager will cost you between £10 and £20 per hour, again depending on your location and their expertise.  A principal dentists’ hourly rate should be in excess of £200 per hour.  Therefore, assuming the Practice Manager has capacity and the skills, getting them to help with the bookkeeping is sensible.  However, as the principal dentist, don’t spend time out of your Surgery to do the bookkeeping yourself when you would be in excess of £175 per hour better off by outsourcing it.  The same goes for a whole host of other areas such as payroll, HR services, CQC compliance assistance etc.

In this world of ever increasing compliance it is very difficult to keep on top of every piece of legislation.  For multiple practice owners this is much easier as you can have one person in charge of each part of the business so keeping the expertise in-house can make good commercial sense.  

However, for smaller and single-handed practices, expecting the Practice Manager (or the principal dentist where there is no Practice Manager) to know everything is almost impossible.  Outsourcing certain elements of the job can not only save you money but also give you peace of mind that you have the help of experts to keep you right.

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer here.  Every practice is different and it will depend upon the ability and resources within your work force but if there are not enough hours in the day or certain parts of the job are stressing you out then outsourcing these specific areas can significantly improve your job satisfaction.

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